Lifting Japan’s Ban on Level 4 Drone Flight

Akihabara News (Tokyo) — The Japanese government is expected to lift its ban on Level 4 drone flights, perhaps as soon as April of next year.

Currently, some beyond visual line-of-sight (BVLOS) drone flights can be permitted in “less populated areas” such as the remote islands and mountainous areas of Japan. The lifting of the Level 4 ban will also open up the possibility of BVLOS flights in populated and urban areas.

“BVLOS is the biggest obstacle to overcome when wanting to establish commercialized logistics with drones,” comments Asa Quesenberry, founder of Sakai, Osaka, based drone and eVTOL firm DroNext.

The first drone delivery services in Japan have already been launched, although currently only in a few remote rural areas of the country.

This movement is expected to pick up steam with the lifting of the Level 4 ban, especially since it will open up the possibility for a wide variety of additional companies and groups to begin testing and building out drone logistics systems.

No longer will tests in more populated areas rely only on those major corporations which have influence with the national government.

Quesenberry explains that Japan’s approach has been different from some of the other leading drone nations in the sense that there is not—and never has been—any sort of national drone pilot licensing system.

“It is very odd that Japan is going from no national license to its first national license granting the ability to conduct this BVLOS Level 4 flight,” he says.

He adds, “This whole decision in my mind speaks volumes about how serious the Japanese government is about being involved and being a leader in the advanced air mobility space, whether it be drones or eVTOLs.”

Japan was originally rather passive and sluggish about the drone industry, and there was disinterest in the equipment which may have formerly been viewed as more of a curiosity or as a toy.

However, this attitude has palpably changed in the past three years or so, as more policymakers in both the national and local governments are beginning to focus on drones and eVTOLs as industries which are set for rapid market growth, and in regard to which Japan may have important contributions to make, even on a global scale.

Quesenberry cautions, however, that even the lifting of the Level 4 ban next year will not immediately lead to a swarm of drones hovering over Shibuya Crossing in Tokyo.

There will first need to be steady advances in Unmanned Aircraft System Traffic Management (UTM) involving the need to identify the necessary services, responsibilities, information architecture, data exchange protocols, software functions, infrastructure, and performance requirements for enabling the management of low-altitude drone operations.

However, the new licensing system and the lifting of the Level 4 ban may be creating the conditions for Japan to accelerate its testing stage and potentially move more quickly than many other nations toward drone-based logistics systems in urban settings.

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